Slashdot Mirror
How An Open Source Plugin Tamed a Chaotic Comments Section With A Simple Quiz (arstechnica.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader jebrick quotes an article from Ars Technica about how Norway's government-owned public broadcasting company "employs open source tactics to fight trolling":
The five-person team behind a simple WordPress plugin, which took three hours to code, never expected to receive worldwide attention as a result. But NRKbeta, the tech-testing group at Norway's largest national media organization, tapped into a meaty vein with the unveiling of last February's Know2Comment, an open source plugin that can attach to any WordPress site's comment section. "It was a basic idea," NRKbeta developer Stale Grut told a South By Southwest crowd on Tuesday. "Readers had to prove they read a story before they were able to comment on it"... He and fellow staffers spent three hours building the plugin, which Grut reminded the crowd is wholly open source... "[W]e realized not every article is in need of this. We are a tech site; we don't have a lot of controversy, so there's not a big need for it. We use it now on stories where we anticipate there'll be uninformed debate to add this speed bump."
What do you think? And would a quiz-for-commenting-privileges be a good addition to Slashdot?
What do you think? And would a quiz-for-commenting-privileges be a good addition to Slashdot?
Readers had to prove they read a story before they were able to comment on it
This would end Slashdot as we know it!!
But in a good way.
As an additional suggestion, people would only be able to post as AC if they got every question wrong... AKA "Hot Take" mode.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Will editor's have to demonstrate they've read the story as well? Little things like copy and pasted characters unsupported by the site suggest they hadn't.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
I don't know what this article is about, but I'm sure the Russians are involved somehow.
Disclaimer: I am Norwegian, so when I grew up NRK was the one and only TV channel available.
Even so, I do believe it is one of the best public broadcasters in the world: Less resources than BBC but able to do a lot of very good stuff.
http://nrk.no/ is one of the news sites I visit every day, and I use their program streaming solution to view the few programs I still care about.
NRK came up with "Slow TV", watching a train ride that takes 12 hours is almost hypnotic, and the full Hurtigruten coastal express trip is amazing.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
I don't know if it would work, but I would try it for random articles and see.
In the good old days there were fewer trolls, and for a long time the moderation system worked well enough to keep them under control. This might be enough to thin the troll ranks, and tip the balance back towards informed discussion.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
The system I like the best (that I'm not sure I've ever seen actually deployed anywhere) is the concept of charging $0.25 per comment. If the trolls are the ones ruining the industry, let them subsidize it.
I donâ(TM)t agree with having to prove you have read a story to comment, but taking Trumpâ(TM)s tweets and blindly following is how that Incompetent disgrace of a politician got elected in the first place.
thatsthejoke.jpg
But actually, why don't you agree with having to prove (via incredibly simple quiz) that you read the article you're about to comment on? If you comment without having read it, it's automatically off-topic.
It's like trying to discuss answers on an english test based only on the answer, without having read the question.
These folks are patriots and do not subscribe to the plans of internationalist banksters ! How Dare They !
Here you can see a documentary of these heinous people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDY4ivFTAo
How can they dare to present an alternative to the NY moneymen ?
This evil act(TM) must be fought by all available propaganda means.
See how evil the Roosians are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDY4ivFTAo
All the youngsters have been brought into line by New York Money and their Marxist stuff.
Be ashamed of yourself and prepare for the labour camp !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDY4ivFTAo
Hey, I have an idea. We should create a site trollcentral.com that will allow users to troll multiple comments pages at the same time. The site will provide a list of thousands of links from hundreds of websites, and your one troll comment will be simultaneously posted into all of them!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't know. I didn't read the article.
These days the journalists do not fully research the topic. It's not what pays the bills and it's not their mission. At best, they just put together a few sentences and rush it to the front page. So I do not expect the article to be accurate and informative and I rather prefer to head directly to the comments section. People, who comment there, are quick to point out flaws in the article, add more accurate information, links, references and personal hands on experience. If the site, that you follow, does not have that kind of comments, it's not worth following.
If someone does not agree with the Official Line Of New York, he must be a "Troll".
You don't need free speech, I guess.
Better outsource thinking to the moneychangers. Then you can be a helpless coward and they determine when they will shut you off.
One Dollar, One Vote !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQYE7lVkaFI
This also is yet another step into the groupthink.
Because is enforces The One View(TM), where only the interptetation, the context, the mindset, and the way of thinking of the author are deemed valid.
A huge problem, since most laymen do not understand that there is no such thing as an absolute reality. (They also think that conflicts with science, while it is actually at its heart. But mostly, they merely think in terms of feeling personally attacked and threatened, hating what is not like them.)
How about commenters that pass the quiz get an automatic +1 mod? That could work. Not positive it'd be a good idea, though.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Like you'd know.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
After all, they are paid to PROGRAM the plebejans into supporting the various wars of the 1%.
So they just write some tripe about "evil Assad" "regime" "evil Assad using gas" "evil use of barrel bombs".
Rinse repeat 1000 times and the sheeple will support the bombing and the arming of Moderate Islamist Terrorists. You know, the folks who will be "superdangerous devils" in about 17 months or so. When they have tortured some of their former CIA handlers to death.
Both of these ideologies are jealous, deadly and attractive for the simple-minded.
If only everybody subscribed to the same mental model, peace would pop out and we would all live in paradise. It is all a matter of conscience. Let's proceed to kill all deviants.
That is the core of these two IDEOLOGIES. Actually they are quite similar in their irrationality, idealism and zeal.
Mohammedism urges people to over-reproduce and then blames the "evil non-believers" on the resulting famine.?
But you know what ? STUPID WHITEY is ready and willing to submit to both of these ideologies.
Tough times ahead.
It would hopefully stop or at least slow down the A.C. Russian astroturfers
I'm assuming the poster would be in charge of the questions? That seems like something not everyone would buy into/have time for. Though if trolling is a problem it's a good investment. Reddit could use something like that but it'd be difficult given their post types (how can you make a legit question about an animated gif of a girl falling off a roof?)
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The goal is to get clicks. Editors mis-stating things invites an army pedants to post in order to correct them.
Readers had to prove they read a story before they were able to comment on it
This would end Slashdot as we know it!!
But in a good way.
As an additional suggestion, people would only be able to post as AC if they got every question wrong... AKA "Hot Take" mode.
This would also get rid of a lot of automatic posts (bots), comment spam such as the "gay naggers" thing, and automatic gainsaying.
It would also slow down the insulters and auto-dissers by making them take a few moments to read the story. As a bonus, those people would become more informed over time.
I don't know if slashdot is interested in improving the site (whipslash has said that they maintain this site for other goals than popularity), and there may be other considerations such as "no money available", but it would sure make for a nice experiment.
Trolls have little patience. You make it hard to comment on a story for *any* reason, and they will get thinned dramatically. Put a CAPTCHA and that will probably help tremendously as well.
How about positively reinforcing insightful/interesting/informative/funny comments?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I'm sure if you go back to the 1960s, 1940s, 1920s, etc. you would see the same complaint; "These days the journalist do not fully research the topic."
I don't think this is a new issue.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I think this solution is effective for a specific category of abuse, but I can easily think of ways to game it. The only barrier is motivation, which basically translates into the question "How much of a nuisance is it?" If the use of this approach becomes widespread, then they will game it by any of the methods I've already thought of (and I'm confident they'll think of others, too).
I think the better solution is to use EPR (Earned Public Reputation). To put it in the terms you [mykepredko] have presented, you would be paid with an increase in your reputation for the comments you made that earned positive evaluations, and your reputation would be penalized when you did things like propagate fake news or told lies. By setting the default visibility to a slightly positive value, most trolls and all of their sock puppets would instantly lose most of their visibility. I think this system can also be made extremely difficult to game by making the data available. Even an attack by a network of fake identities could be exposed by tracing the links.
Just an elevator summary on time grounds, but feel free to ask politely for more detailed suggestions. Getting me to put up some of the seed money as an investment would require a bit more...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If you don't get any comments, you can't have troll comments. Brilliant.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Vade retro, Satana!
I think the better solution is to use EPR (Earned Public Reputation). To put it in the terms you [mykepredko] have presented, you would be paid with an increase in your reputation for the comments you made that earned positive evaluations, and your reputation would be penalized when you did things like propagate fake news or told lies.
But that's exactly what Karma score is now. You gain reputation, and along with that gain your posts eventually get a higher starting score because of your rep... on a continuing basis any post may be voted up or down.
By setting the default visibility to a slightly positive value, most trolls and all of their sock puppets would instantly lose most of their visibility
Like, say, setting reading mode at a score of 0 or higher instead of -1???
I think this system can also be made extremely difficult to game by making the data available.
While I wouldn't mind seeing that, method serves a fairly close purpose in (hopefully) reducing the impact of bad moderation (though what happens with the work you do in method does not seem at all obvious).
I actually think the Slashdot moderation system does a decent job as it is, but I would like to see this "read the story" comprehension idea implemented as I think it would help quality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That would mean that those of us who leave a site when it pops up the "We see you are using an ad blocker to remove 90% of our content" beg screen would never be able to comment.
There are a lot of other sources for information on subjects that aren't full of click bait, but wouldn't supply the answer to the "quiz".
It's not a terrible idea, it depends on the questions. (And there had better be a bit of randomness in their presentation.)
Of course, in a few years you might get more bots commenting that humans, but at least they'll have read the summary.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Instead of trying to tame things, make user customizable filters so each can get their own view of the comments. Everyone can be happy with no prior restraint needed.
Well one could always try sterilization to thin the ranks?
The one drawback I can see happens when the quiz covers things presented not in Slashdot's summary but in a paywalled featured article. Not everyone wants to have to spend a nontrivial amount of money for a subscription to NYTimes, LATimes, Washington Post, Wired, or WSJ just to be able to comment on things that appear in the summary or one of the alternate sources.
> What do you think? And would a quiz-for-commenting-privileges be a good addition to Slashdot?
Do you think you can force me to read the summary?
Oh, wait, that means I've read it. /. editors, you sons of a...
Might cut down on trolling? I'd try a beta.slashdot ...
Might also keep comments on target
Tho y'all need to add an ability to mod down a whole article ...
I like it!
It could be a barrier to someone experienced who just wants to reply to a comment with some facts.
OK so slashdot isn't perfect. But it does have a great moderation system. Why else do we all skip the article and go straight to the comments? All the crap gets downmodded very quickly, so the rest of us can quickly skip to the insightful...or funny...comments.
The article itself can be biased.
nt
--sf
Well... we should do online voting and have to pass a quiz about the constitution but, apparently, requiring people to know what they're doing is discrimination.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If this were to take effect with ALL news stories, this would destroy American Politics!!!!
HURRAY!
The article claims that...
The summary claims that the article states that...
Cause otherwise we'll start having to say that Julian Assange is a rapist, there are lies on Wikileaks, the Russians hacked the election (not DNC servers), they did everything else too, there was no collusion on the primaries and no evidence of crime in Hillary's emails.
Posting as AC cause I don't log anymore on this website.
Back in my day (and yours too judging by your #) Greased up Yoda Dolls and Natalie Portman's Hot Grits would rule the top 1/3 of any discussion. These days even on topic trolls get modded into oblivion.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
YES.
I also Moderate SlashDot, and I seriously thin that a quiz would be a good way to weed out the "dottard", "dullard" and "dolt" comments.
It need not weed out autonomous commenting. Sometimes, we need the blow-ins, sleepers, surprisers, and leakers.
;-)
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
Unless of course, you were well versed on the topic before coming here.
So people supplying such information at the request of another commenter can just go screw themselves?
Why would you want stale old grut?
... blockchain.
I mean, I like the idea a lot.
A lot of commenters don't read TFS or TFA, so I'm all for this new captcha idea, but goddam it, let's exploit the fucking blockchain buzz word so I can tell the people over at Soylent (when they show up) to fuck off because we are too mature for thay asses.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
...shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. That's what the article's about, right?
People love to come up with things that make OTHER people's lives harder, because they themselves are oh so clever. The people most likely to offer a useful insight tend to value their time and are not going to waste their time to prove to some nitwit's satisfaction that they are not idiots. Those people will just not bother. So, you will only get ill-informed people who did read TFA, but otherwise have little to contribute but noise.
I am astonished by how simple this solution is, the number of times we have all read the ping pong of arguments with the common thread being "You didn't even read the article". I look at myself sheepishly while imagining all the good this solution could do... How could something so obvious and so trivial be echoed by everyone's reticence and not been implemented long ago?
One possible side effect is that these tests will give birth to a new generation of educated trolls, but perhaps the tests could be extended to include a psychological component that includes monikers for troll-ish behavior and requiring further reading before being allowed to post. However if it could be taken this far, I can envision an anti troll solution that allows them [undesirable posters] to "think" they have posted to the general populace, but to limit the interaction of those posts to others that scored similarly with regards to the psychological evaluation.
Of course we can all see that a solution taken to this extreme could be rife with potential abuses. I still find myself dreaming about the forum utopia that could arise from the the removal of trolls, and so I urge that we do not stop with just the basic, "did you read and understand this article?". Lets use this proposed solution [pre-post quiz] as the first salvo in a full fledged assault to reclaim our forums.
If you didn't read the article, how would you know what the topic is? By the clickbait headline that probably totally misrepresents the article content?
If you're only reading the comments, how do you know the comment you're responding to is on-topic? After all that's why comments are kept on-topic, so you don't have a tangential discussion that's spirals further and further away from the original topic.
And even if the comment was on-topic, how do you know the answer isn't already in the article? Wouldn't it be better to point to that and properly deride the commenter for not reading properly, than to go and state your own opinion even if it possibly contradicts the article?
It’s not, it’s just much more apparent now that information is so abundant.
Congratulations on your Dear Leader winning the... "election". :) You must be very pleased.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.